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Biography

Michele Mosca obtained a BMath at Waterloo in 1995 and was recipient of the Mathematics Faculty Alumni Gold Medal. He went to Wolfson College, University of Oxford, on a Commonwealth Scholarship, and received an MSc in Mathematics and the Foundations of Computer Science (with Distinction) in 1996. He continued at Oxford on a UK Communications-Electronic Security Group scholarship, obtaining a DPhil in quantum computer algorithms in 1999 while holding the Robin Gandy Junior Research Fellowship.

He is a co-founder and the Deputy Director of the Institute for Quantum Computing, and a founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Since 1999 he has been a faculty member in the Combinatorics & Optimization department of the University of Waterloo, and a member of the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research, with cross-appointments in Computer Science and Physics. Dr. Mosca has made major contributions to the theory and practice of quantum information processing, particularly in the areas of quantum algorithms, techniques for studying the limitations of quantum computers, quantum self-testing and private quantum channels. Together with collaborators at Oxford, he realized several of the first implementations of quantum algorithms using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. He has made major contributions to the phase estimation approach to quantum algorithms, including the hidden subgroup problems, and quantum searching and counting. In the area of quantum security, he helped define the notion of private quantum channels and develop optimal methods for encrypting quantum information using classical keys.

Dr. Mosca’s work is published widely in top journals, and he co-authored the respected textbook “An Introduction to Quantum Computing” (OUP). Dr. Mosca has won numerous academic awards and honours, including 2010 Canada’s Top 40 Under 40, the Premier’s Research Excellence Award (2000-2005), Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) since 2010, Canada Research Chair in Quantum Computation (2002-2012), University Research Chair at the University of Waterloo (2012-present), and Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2013).